Horrorewind

Online presence

The creator I chose to analyze in this blog post is a YouTube blogger who focuses on film reviews. His name is Rabil Valiahmetov. He has two YouTube channels: the first one is “Ravazu“, and the second one is “CLIFFHANGER”. His channels are built around the idea of reframing and retelling films and story-driven analysis of movies in a way that increases tension and emphasizes suspense. Also, this creator follows the structure of “cliffhanger”.Through watching his content, viewers can experience an emotionally charged retelling of the horrors, not just a boring summary.

This creator began as a film fan, particularly in the horror genre. At first, he created a YouTube channel called “Ravazu” and started to post videos about terrible events that have happened in real life. Then he changed his niche and started to make videos with reviews on horror films. Four years later, he created the second channel and named it  “CLIFFHANGER”, where he started to post videos with reviews on films of different genres, but still, more of them are horror film reviews.The transformation from “Ravazu” to “CLIFFHANGER” represents a strategic growth: he started to post videos more often and expanded the topic from horror reviews to reviews on all films of all genres.

The niche that this creator is following is film review and recap content. The typical characteristics of this niche are: concise storytelling, overvoice, dramatic titles, and narrative hooks, which help to retain the audience. This niche has become popular on YouTube around 2017-2018. There are several factors associated with it. The first one, YouTube’s algorithms began to give priority to videos with higher watch time, and emotionally driven videos with interesting storytelling can hold attention longer. The second one, at the same time, as it horror genre experienced a resurgence after the success of the film “It’, a lot of viewers drew back to horror movies. Finally, YouTube allows all people to analyze films and provide criticism of digital storytelling.

 Rabil Valiahmetov perfectly fits the film review niche as a creative storyteller. His presentation style is captivating. The combination of bright moments of the film, expressive narration, and clever, sarcastic humor makes his videos uniquely atmospheric. Although he is not the most popular creator on YouTube, it is interesting to watch his content.

Although his second channel is more popular, the “ Ravazu” fits the film review niche better. This channel has around 452,000 subscribers and he uploads videos seldom, only 2- 3 times per year. Videos usually gain 200000 – 400000 views, older videos gains 2 million views, 7000-15000 likes, and 500-2000 comments. The channel’s visual style features dark and cold tones, cinematic clips, and dramatic thumbnails, matching the horror-review niche. His tone is serious but ironic, which makes reviews engaging. His style evolved from simple narration to polished storytelling with better editing and sound design. The decrease in Ravazu’s channel may be explained by YouTube restrictions in Russia. Earlier, the channel saw rapid growth and big viewership. Rabil demonstrates clear strategies that align with the design thinking model (Mallory,2025). His hooks are built on a short intro, which shows the scariest moment of the film without any context and emotional voiceover. They draw his audience of young horror fans in. His storytelling strategy is to satisfy his viewers’ need to emotionally charged fast reviews, consistent with define stages. His branding strategy focuses on creating a recognizable visual and sound identity, while his uploads show refinement.

For frame-by-frame analysis, I chose video “ALLDEATHS: Wrong turn: Foundation(2021)”. The first frame uses tight framing, cold lighting, and follows the rule of third to draw the audience’s attention. The next three shots are outtakes from the film. The second frame is placed at the beginning of the video without a narrative connection to intrigue the viewers. The third one is the most reviewed moment of the video. The fourth frame imitates an old videotape effect, with use of a special editing technique, it creates the feeling of film rewind and adding nostalgia. The final one concludes the video by summarizing all deaths, delivering satisfying closure. The sound enhances the emotional impact of the story (Mallory, 2025). The voiceover, background music, and original sounds from the movie create atmosphere and clarity. All techniques in this video help the creator to make a creative interpretation and allow viewers to clearly understand the idea of the film and the video.

Rabil’s content brings value for his audience by providing emotionally intense and well-edited summaries that help people understand the idea of the movie without watching the original, and his storytelling helps people enjoy the suspense. Viewers can get emotions and cinematic insights from his video. They keep watching Rabil’s content because it creates a unique blend of film analysis and сconfident and expressive presentation style. I realized that combining emotions with a clear scenario can make my content more engaging, and a charismatic presentation can keep the audience more involved.

References:

  1. webdev, and webdev. “History of the YouTube Algorithm: – Content Guaranteed.” Content Guaranteed – from Vision to Views, 30 Dec. 2024, https://www.contentguaranteed.com/?p=644. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
  2. Cambridge Dictionary. “Cliffhanger.” @CambridgeWords, 18 Nov. 2025, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cliffhanger?q=cliffhanger. Accessed 26 Nov. 2025.
  3. “КЛИФФХЭНГЕР.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDyEhXL9moXkbU-CQ38Ir7w. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
  4. “Ravazu.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6EWU3VzlPTmDcAOtUnQEDg. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
  5. Ravazu. “#ВСЕСМЕРТИ: Поворот не туда: Наследие (2021) ОБЗОР.” YouTube, 29 Mar. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmpDYXy2mis. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
  6. Mallory, Michael.”Production skills for short-form videos” BCM 114 lecture Slides,2025 week 6, slide № 7 and № 11-12
  7. Mallory, Michael.”What’s a niche” BCM 114 lecture Slides,2025 week 2, slide № 5-7
  8. Mallory, Michael.”Design Thinking” BCM 114 lecture Slides,2025 week 1, slide № 13-14
  9. Mallory, Michael.”STRATEGIES AND METHODS” BCM 114 lecture Slides,2025 week 3, slide № 13-14
  10. Mallory, Michael.”Value and Social Utility” BCM 114 lecture Slides,2025 week 4, slide № 13, №15 and № 18